Pretty Boys
by Minnow
Summary: Remus and Sirius get together; Snape interferes. (SBxRL)


**Pretty Boys by Minnow**

**Disclaimer:** These characters belong to J.K. Rowling and various publishers and corporations.  
**Era:** Marauder Days, Sixth Year, Remus POV.  
**Rating: **PG-13  
**Summary:** Remus and Sirius get together; Snape interferes.  
**AN: **I wrote this because it's the sort of fic I most enjoy reading, with Sirius and Remus madly in love and all set to live happily ever after.

**Pretty Boys  
**

It was the second term in Sixth Year, and the beginning of Sirius and me.

First, we had the rift over Sirius's prank against Snape. Then, we spent the Christmas holidays apart, not even able to glower unforgivingly at each other across the common room. And somehow, we both found that we'd really missed each other.

At the first full moon that term we were alone together when I transformed. That often happened, because James had an equal amount of detentions and Quidditch practice, and Peter was reluctant to be alone with two canines when he was in his rat form. I still wonder what would have happened if Padfoot had gone after the rat one night. Well, that's why Peter didn't come along unless Prongs was there to protect him.

When I came to myself in the morning, cold and shaking, Sirius was lying on the bed beside me, already back in human form and looking very thoughtful.

Normally, he was quite reluctant to transform back from Padfoot, and he usually waited until the very last minute; then, he'd have to run all the way back to the castle so nobody would discover where he had been all night.

Anyway, he told me very earnestly that we needed to talk. He got me at a weak moment, of course. That was Sirius all over, when he really wanted something.

"Look, Re, I have a proposition for you,' he said. 'No, no, don't get freaked out. Lie down. Relax.' He massaged my aching back muscles. 'Is that better? Okay. I really want to ask you...well, you've probably noticed there are quite a few girls who like me.'

So did he want me to approach a girl for him? I was still fuddled by the moon, and didn't have the faintest idea what he was on about. Why would he need me to get a girlfriend for him anyway? Sirius didn't need to tell me that girls liked him. Who wouldn't? He was so gorgeous, so volatile, so expressive, and his eagerness sometimes contrasted so fiercely with his pureblood, aristocratic good looks, that you had to smile at him. And he'd grin back, and strange things would happen to your heartbeat. No doubt the girls experienced that feeling around Sirius just as much as I did.

'Right,' Sirius went on, 'and quite a few girls like you too. Before you start protesting, there's that Ravenclaw in Potions who's always practically slavering at you. Just to mention one.'

I had to concede the Ravenclaw. Okay, and I quite liked her too. But we were only in sixth year, and at Hogwarts, as at most boarding schools, magical or otherwise, you wouldn't go further than admiring a girl from a distance. If you liked her enough, you'd ask her out, for a very staid date to Hogsmeade. We didn't, contrary to popular belief, snog girls or have it off with them all the time. I doubt that James and Lily did more than kiss before they were married. That was the Hogwarts moral code.

'Well, I am attracted to girls,' Sirius went on. 'I mean, I don't think I'm even bisexual.' He hesitated for a moment. I could smell how nervous he was, which surprised me until I heard him out. "So, Moony... But I think I'm attracted to you too. I do realise we're both boys, right? But I'd feel the same way about you if you were a girl. Anyway, it would be interesting to see whether we would work as a couple, wouldn't it? '

He must have rehearsed all this, I remember thinking dreamily. Didn't mince his words, and even looked straight at me as he was speaking. They didn't put the boy in Gryffindor for nothing.

The Hogwarts moral code protected girls from boys, and vice versa, but there was no apparent code for boys with boys. I think it rarely happened in the wizarding world, especially among purebloods like Sirius, who would be required to keep the dwindling bloodline going. Toujours pur.

I thought, a bit wistfully, of the Ravenclaw. I also thought of how I felt when Sirius was around, and there was no contest. 'I suppose I'd like you just as much if you were a girl too,' I admitted.

That seemed to be the right answer.

That first day, the day after the full moon, Sirius didn't get to lessons at all, and I didn't get to the hospital wing for my usual examination and rest.

Certainly, the words 'toujours pur' no longer applied to Sirius in any sense.

After the kissing, and the touching, and the lovemaking, we, or rather, I, had a momentary return to sanity as the midday sun came streaming through the tiny windows in the shack.

I panicked, and when Sirius asked why the hell I was so flustered, I patiently enumerated our two main problems to him. Firstly, Madame Pomfrey would come looking for me at any moment.

Secondly, James and Peter would come looking for us at any moment.

In fact, I was astounded that they hadn't all turned up earlier. I was also terrified that they had, and neither of us had noticed.

Sirius sniggered. 'I'm not an idiot, Moony. I put an isolation spell on the shack. Nobody can get anywhere near it.' He wrapped his arms around me so tightly that it would have hurt if it had been anyone but Sirius.

I unwrapped myself from them. It wasn't easy.

'Siri, you _are _an idiot! That makes everything even worse! They'll all know something's going on if they can't even reach the place.'

'No, _you're_ the idiot, Moony. Don't you get it? You transformed last night. I missed you this morning – James and Peter will swear blind I was fast asleep in the dorm all night – went looking for you and found you with my very effective seeking spell. Found you right here, where you should be. I was really relieved! I'd been so worried that a troll might have carried you off.'

He lowered his voice and spoke almost into my mouth. 'But when I found you, we couldn't leave this place.' He kissed me lingeringly. 'I reckon it's the ghosts. You're certainly very pale and trembly, Re. I can't imagine just a kiss could do that to you.'

He looked so smug and guileless, and I could just imagine him spouting lie after lie so convincingly, and I had to laugh.

When we were dressed again and the bed thoroughly scourgified, Sirius removed the spell. We banged on the walls of the shack, shouting, 'Help!' at the top of our lungs, and the door promptly tumbled open to admit our three expected visitors. I was glad I'd laughed earlier, because I managed a straight face as Sirius told them earnestly, spellbindingly even, of our morning's terrible imprisonment. 'I must admit, I was scared, Madame Pomfrey,' he said, and she actually patted his head and said, 'You poor dear!'

I was dragged up to the hospital wing, Sirius was spirited away to Gryffindor Tower, and we didn't see each other again for a couple of days.

God, that was a sweet reunion, though.

I told you about the Hogwarts moral code. Sirius and I would have been in desperate trouble if anyone had had the slightest inkling what we were getting up to.

So we made damn sure they didn't. Sirius liked to boast that he'd boosted his Transfiguration mark by about 300 with the Animagus work, and he was now doing wonders for his Charms. Silencing charms, invisibility charms – that one wore off too quickly, so we only used it once – deafening charms, isolation spells... They all came tripping off his wand gracefully and effectively.

We'd take it in turns to creep into each other's beds when James and Peter were asleep. Wrapped in our bubble charm, inaudible to anyone else in the dorm, we'd spend the nights steadfastly not sleeping. I came up with a useful spell that allowed you to have the effects of eight hours' sleep no matter how long you'd been awake the night before, and this got us through the pile of work needed on the NEWTs course.

No matter how carefully we covered our sexual tracks, we were in love, and we didn't cover that up so well. It was...intense. Hard to avoid looking at each other, holding hands without even thinking about it, sitting very close together. So hard to avoid that we never quite managed it, and spent a lot of time suddenly springing away from each other, like two magnets repelling. No doubt that made it even more obvious that we'd been a bit too close. But I was good at keeping secrets, and at last I had one worth keeping. The sneaked glances in the empty History of Magic section in the library, our feet touching as we sat opposite each other at lunch, sharing the last available armchair in the common room; so many ways to convey that we were together without anyone else suspecting a thing.

Though the wizarding world did not recognise boys and boys as a lifestyle choice, crushes involving other boys were considered fairly normal, as long as you didn't act on them. James realised very early on that his best friend, his Sirius, was no longer always around to plan pranks with him, or to listen to him talk about Lily, or just to act as a foil for him. But he was tolerant of what he assumed to be just a passing phase, and in fact was doubly kind to me for a while; he obviously thought that I was the one with the crush and Sirius was humouring me.

In the end, I got a bit fed up with being treated like an object of pity, and Sirius and I decided to tell James the truth about how we felt. Together, so that Sirius wouldn't fob him off with one of his stories. We didn't tell him about the physical stuff, though. Not worth the risk.

James was a nice guy. I hate to remember how nice he was, how kind, what a good friend, because it makes even the happiest memories heartbreaking. He looked a bit alarmed for a moment. 'You mean...love, like me and Evans?' he asked, bewildered.

'No, mate,' Sirius said, rolling his eyes. 'Because Evans won't even talk to you, will she? Not after you hit her best friend with that bloody Snitch you're always messing about with.'

James looked close to tears. 'But it was an accident!'

'Anyway,' Sirius plodded on, 'Re and I are just like you and Evans in your dreams. Okay?'

'Only, just in an emotional way,' I babbled. 'No touching, or any of that.'

Sirius glared at me, and James took off his glasses and polished them, avoiding our eyes for a moment. Then, he grinned at us, and put an arm around each of our shoulders. 'I'm really glad for you. You know, whatever makes you happy, and all that.'

'Cheers,' said Sirius. 'I'm sure Evans will come round eventually. Girls, you know.'

James was relieved, I think, at the hint that one day Sirius and I would find the right women and tread the righteous path to wizarding propriety

Peter wasn't told anything. We just didn't bother. 'Let him draw his own conclusions,' James advised.

The person who really took notice, though, was our old enemy, Severus Snape. In spite of his near-death experience in the autumn term, he persisted in hanging about near the Whomping Willow looking out for us; though I noticed he kept well away from us around the full moon.

Well, Snape was on the right track, because Sirius and I were actually spending a lot of time in the Shrieking Shack. But after seeing Snape's shadow slinking away into the night one time too many, we abandoned the shack as a hideout, and went for the Forbidden Forest instead

One evening just before Easter we were lying on the forest floor, looking up at the sliver of moon hanging in the still-light sky. We were skipping dinner at the time: it was silent, and I was looking forward to summer, to a time when the moon barely lingered for five hours. Though I loved having my friends with me when I transformed, it was still a painful process.

We weren't exactly just lying there. I mean, we weren't doing anything too dramatic, but we did kiss each other from time to time, because, well, that's what we did. Habit, whenever we were alone together. And we were probably hugging each other as well, again, just a bit, from time to time. We were obviously not just having a friendly chat, though we weren't shagging each other senseless either.

Sirius suddenly leapt up, without any warning, and shouted, 'Oi!' His voice echoed across the forest, but I still heard a rustling of leaves from one of the trees just above us, and caught sight of a dark figure running as fast as it could out of the forest.

Sirius didn't try to follow, just stood and ranted at me. 'It's bloody Snivellus again. Honestly, Moony, why you didn't let me kill him last term? Just think of the blessed peace we'd have now.'

I didn't like to talk about those horrible events, and Sirius knew it. But I couldn't help feeling just a bit sympathetic to his point of view. Frankly, I would happily have torn Snape limb to limb just then, because he had obviously been sneaking around and found our latest hideout. Not to mention missing his own dinner specifically to spy on us.

Just the thought gave me the creeps, and it made Sirius cross and sulky. 'Shit, I should have gone after him, Moony. Now he's going to go and prattle to all the Slytherins and they'll make our life hell.'

Of course, Snape never had many friends, so perhaps he thought he could buy the Slytherin crowd by offering them some tasty titbits of gossip.

'They can do a lot worse than make our life hell,' I reminded him. We were both underage – I was the youngest in the year, and only just 16 – and there was no way that we could hope to get away with being caught in the forest snogging. Well, that's how it would look to Snape. It was more than enough to get us expelled, if he decided to go to Dumbledore, and no doubt he would.

In fact, Snape obviously went to Dumbledore straight away, because Sirius and I had barely got back to the castle when we were summoned to his study. McGonagall escorted us. She seemed to have some idea of what it was about because she looked at both of us rather dubiously, as if we might give her some terrible Muggle disease. The twigs and grass on our robes didn't help.

'He was out of bounds too,' Sirius whispered to me just before the door opened, and McGonagall shushed us.

Dumbledore seemed a bit bemused by Snape's report. I was quite curious to find out what the bloody little sneak had said about us.

'Mr. Black, Mr. Lupin, please sit down.'

We sat. I have rarely felt so uncomfortable in my life, but Sirius seemed at ease. Possibly, after the rift with his family, he didn't really care whether he was expelled or not.

'Now, I have been having another chat with your, er, schoolmate, Mr. Snape.'

I shrank into my seat, but Sirius leaned forward, bright-eyed and smiling slightly, as if he actually were a friend of Snape's, and this was a social discussion about Snape's surprise birthday party.

Dumbledore looked at him a bit suspiciously, but continued, 'I gather that he saw you two out of bounds in the Forbidden Forest, behaving inappropriately.'

Sirius continued to smile blandly. 'Sorry, Professor Dumbledore, I don't quite understand. How d'you mean, inappropriately?' He almost, but not quite, gave Dumbledore one of his Black looks, the aristocratic peering down his nose which he still did sometimes out of habit, even after years with us in Gryffindor.

I think Dumbledore blushed slightly, but it was quite warm, and I couldn't swear to it. 'Mr. Snape informs me that you and Mr. Lupin were, um, kissing each other.'

Sirius raised an eyebrow. 'So? I'm sorry, I don't see the problem.'

'Yes, well...now, surely Mr. Black, your parents have at some point had a useful talk with you about growing up? Or your friends have discussed it, perhaps?'

'Oh, yeah, that. I don't see how witches and wizards getting together can have anything to do with Lupin and me. Until we get together with witches ourselves, I mean.'

'Mr. Black, I myself don't quite see, then, how you came to be kissing one of your male friends.'

I wondered whether Sirius was going to say that we were practising for when those witches came along, but he just looked even more confused. 'Why's that a problem, Professor Dumbledore? I mean, Lupin's my friend. I kiss all my friends. I kiss Potter about twenty times a day sometimes.'

Dumbledore was not at all sure whether or not he should swallow this, and sat for a moment considering how to react. I felt sorry for him, because he was, and still is, the wisest wizard I have ever known, but he wasn't at all used to this sort of situation. It had probably rarely arisen openly at Hogwarts before.

Sirius took the opportunity to add, 'You know, Professor Dumbledore, I would like to complain about Snape following us everywhere. Sometimes, we're quite tempted to put on a little show for him, just to annoy him.'

Having sorted out his defence on all fronts, Sirius sat and looked eagerly at Dumbledore, his grey eyes wide and innocent.

Dumbledore finally pronounced the sentence. 'We-ell...you and Mr. Lupin and Mr. Snape were all out of bounds, and so you shall all miss the next two Hogsmeade visits. I have had a word with Mr. Snape about his apparent obsession with your gang. I would have thought that the last episode would have cured him of that. Oh, and I am deducting ten points each from Gryffindor and Slytherin.'

He then looked at me and said, 'I also have to remind you, Mr. Lupin, that if you are caught out of bounds again, behaving appropriately or otherwise, you will forfeit your prefect's badge.'

Sirius seemed to be on the verge of protesting. I stood up hastily, before he could talk Dumbledore into making me Head Boy on the spot.

The teachers never ate in the main hall at breakfast time, so the mornings used to be the time to settle grudges before school. When Sirius and I went in to breakfast the day after the audience with Dumbledore, the Slytherin table erupted with jeers, and one of Snape's new-found cronies yelled, 'Oi, it's the pretty boys!'

'Pansy boys, you mean,' sneered another.

'Pretty, though. I wouldn't mind a bit of that Sirius Black. If I could bring myself to touch a Gryffindor with the end of a bargepole.'

'The mudblood's okay. Hey, Loopy Lupin, how about a kiss, eh?'

'Nah, he only kisses Black. Tough luck, mate.'

Sirius said, 'Ignore them,' and very discreetly mouthed a spell; took out his wand and swished it so fast that his hand seemed to blur for a second.

The Slytherins, who tended to be slow, missed the action altogether, but almost immediately stopped shouting at Sirius and me, and started muttering among themselves in consternation. And I did a double take, because the Slytherin table was now occupied by a full complement of unutterably gorgeous boys and girls, who were glowering at each other, confused and angry.

'How did you do that?'

'Simple. A little glamour spell. It'll wear off in a couple of hours, unfortunately.' Sirius whistled loudly, and called, 'Here, Snivellus, who's the pretty boy now?' He was laughing so much that I had to shove him over to the Gryffindor table before Snape hexed him.

'Snape looks good this morning,' James grinned. 'Nice one, Sirius.'

'Thanks. It's the golden hair that does it, I think. Not a trace of grease.'

Later, in Charms, Sirius turned to me and said, with surprising vehemence, 'I really couldn't take that rubbish this morning. You're not pretty anyway, Re. You're beautiful.'

And he, the most beautiful person on earth, gave me his sweetest smile, and I fell in love with him all over again.

**End **


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